E. S. Drower

in Baghdad during the early 1940s The daughter of a clergyman, in 1906, she was working for Curtis Brown, a London literary agency when she signed Arthur Ransome to write Bohemia in London. In 1911, she married Edwin Drower and after his knighthood became Lady Drower. As E. S. Stevens, she wrote a series of romantic novels for Mills & Boon and other publishers. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to Iraq where Sir Edwin Drower was adviser to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1947. editions of unique manuscripts such as astronomical divinations (omen) (The Book of the Zodiac) and magical texts (A Book of Black Magic; A Phylactery for Rue), and relevant translations of Mandaean religious works such as The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa and The Coronation of the Great Šišlam. Before her scholarly activity, "Already under her maiden name of Ethel Stefana Stevens, Lady Drower had been inspired by the Orient. Between 1909 and 1927, she published 13 novels, and she was the author of two delectable books of travel." Ethel, Lady Drower died on 27 January 1972, aged 92. She was survived by her children, including daughter, Margaret "Peggy" Hackforth-Jones, and other family members. ==Awards and honors==

Drower received several honours for her scholarly contributions: • Honorary DLitt from Oxford University • Honorary DD from Uppsala University • Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies of London University • The Lidzbarski Gold Medal from the German Oriental Society in January 1964 for her work on the Mandaeans and their literary transmission on 1 October 1964 ==Drower Collection==

The Drower Collection (DC), held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford University, is the most extensive collection of Mandaean manuscripts. The collection consists of 55 manuscripts, many of which Drower had obtained through the Mandaean priest Sheikh Negm bar Zahroon. Drower donated MSS. Drower 1-53 to the Bodleian Library in 1958. MS. Drower 54, The Coronation of the Great Šišlam, was given to the library by Lady Drower in 1961. MS. Drower 55, Lady Drower's personal notebook, was added in 1986. After her death, some of Drower's private notebooks were obtained by Rudolf Macúch. These notebooks are not part of the Bodleian Library's Drower Collection. MS. DC 2, which was copied by Sheikh Negm for Drower in 1933, mentions the Mandaean baptismal name (i.e., spiritual name given by a Mandaean priest, as opposed to a birth name) of E. S. Drower as Klila pt Šušian (), as her middle name Stefana means 'wreath' in Greek. MS. DC 26, a manuscript copied by copied by Sheikh Faraj for Drower in 1936, contains two qmahas (exorcisms). MS. DC 26 is dedicated to Drower's daughter, Margaret ("Peggy"), who is given the Mandaean baptismal name Marganita pt Klila () in the text. ==Letters==

In 2012, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley published a compiled collection of E. S. Drower's letters. The book includes texts of Drower's correspondence with Cyrus H. Gordon, Rudolf Macuch, Sidney H. Smith, Godfrey R. Driver, Samuel H. Hooke, and Franz Rosenthal. ==Bibliography==